Social Media: Paid vs. Organic

With over 2.3 billion people on social media last year and 2.5 billion projected for 2017 according to Statista, it’s hard to deny the impact that social media can make on consumers. Businesses of all industries should understand the benefits of incorporating social media into their overall digital marketing plan.

With social media marketing, there is often confusion between the two elements that make up the marketing channel. The first component is organic social media, which is what most of us think of when it comes to this powerful digital marketing avenue. The organic side of social media marketing is the utilization of free tools and features on any given platform (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.). Essentially, there isn’t a budget or spending involved; instead, it mostly consists of a well-crafted content posting calendar. Content is king, and that same rule applies to a business’s organic social media strategy.

Content creation and scheduling isn’t the only part of organic social media marketing. Community building, social listening and networking, and profile optimization are all necessities for a successful organic strategy. This involves interacting and being personable with followers to build a community organically. While organic social media strategies aren’t typically the best marketing channel to generate conversions, they still uphold a business’s overarching goals and objectives. Organic social media is the foundation to your social media presence and the perception of your company in the minds of your potential customers.

The other component of social media for business is paid advertising. Because social media has grown exponentially over the years, content was basically overloading news feeds. Thus, the powerhouse platform Facebook established an algorithm that doesn’t populate a user’s news feed with all posts from friends and pages they like. Social media in return has become a “pay to play” game regarding advertising. For businesses to ensure they reach their followers and potential followers, an ad spend budget may be used towards a paid social media advertising campaign.

Paid social media is becoming more and more imperative to include in nearly all business marketing strategies. To support the foundation of your organic strategy on social media, paid ads may be a viable source to reach users in your target market that you may not be able to reach organically. With the extensive targeting options in social media ad interfaces, especially Facebook, the audience building options are virtually endless. Advertising on social media covers practically all objectives that a business may have: drive website traffic, increase brand awareness, lead generation, newsletter signups, purchases, etc. With the ability to hone in on specific users on social media by using the extensive targeting options, including remarketing, social media has become a strong force in the digital marketing world.

Combining an all-star organic social media strategy with an effective paid advertising strategy will make any business soar. The two components of social media marketing certainly work together and cannot be optimally efficient without cohesion. There isn’t a limit to the possibilities of growing a business through a well-defined, successful social media marketing strategy.

To learn more, contact our experts at SocialSEO. Let us help take your business to the next level in the search engines, Social Media and PPC.